Mark Seal

Vanity Fair Contributing Editor Mark Seal is the author of Wildflower: An Extraordinary Life and Untimely Death in Africa, about Joan Root, the legendary wildlife filmmaker and naturalist murdered in her home on Kenyas Lake Naivasha in 2006.

The book was based on his 2007 Vanity Fair article, A Flowering Evil; both article and the book were optioned by Working Title Films and Julia Roberts production company, with Julia set to star as Joan.

Prior to joining Vanity Fair, A journalist for 35 years, Seal has written for a variety of magazines and newspapers and has served as a collaborator on almost 20 nonfiction books for major publishers.

His work for Vanity Fair has most recently included three features about Bernard Madoff, his family and financial victims.

He has also written about high life (Super Yachts; the insiders of Aspen; the incredible world of con artist Clark Rockefeller) and low (the heist of the 2001 Oscar statuettes), the feuding kings of Reality TV, the inter-family war of oilman-turned-Hollywood mogul Marvin Davis, the endless dramas of the Angelli dynasty of Italy, and a collaboration with the late and legendary gonzo journalist Hunter S. Thompson that resulted in the freeing of a young woman imprisoned with a life sentence for a murder she didnt commit.

Seal lives in Aspen, Colorado.